Gerhard Richter

A father draws boundaries and calls a halt, whenever necessary. As I didn't have that, I was able to stay childishly naive…

— Gerhard Richter

With a brush you have control. The paint goes on the brush and you make the mark. From experience you know exactly…

— Gerhard Richter

Every museum is full of nice things. That's the opposite of before. It was important things or serious things. Now we have…

— Gerhard Richter

I go to the studio every day, but I don't paint every day. I love playing with my architectural models. I love…

— Gerhard Richter

When I look back on the townscapes now, they do seem to me to recall certain images of the destruction of Dresden…

— Gerhard Richter

The reason these paintings are destined for New York is not because I am disappointed about a lack of German interest, but…

— Gerhard Richter

Perhaps the Doors, Curtains, Surface Pictures, Panes of Glass, etc. are metaphors of despair, prompted by the dilemma that our sense of…

— Gerhard Richter

When we describe a process, or make out an invoice, or photograph a tree, we create models; without them we would know…

— Gerhard Richter

Of course, pictures of objects also have this transcendental side to them. Every object, being part of an ultimately incomprehensible world, also…

— Gerhard Richter

Weeks go by, and I don't paint until finally I can't stand it any longer. I get fed up. I almost don't…

— Gerhard Richter

The grey paintings, for example, a painted grey surface, completely monochromatic - they come from a motivation, or result from a state,…

— Gerhard Richter

It can be a work by Mondrian, a piece of music by Schönberg or Mozart, a painting by Leonardo, Barnett Newman or…

— Gerhard Richter

My landscapes are not only beautiful, or nostalgic, with a Romantic or classical suggestion of lost Paradises, but above all 'untruthful.' By…

— Gerhard Richter

There is sorrow, but I hope one can see that it is sorrow for the people who died so young and so…

— Gerhard Richter

A student researching into my work has actually traced the newspapers and magazines where I found theses images and has found out…

— Gerhard Richter

Based on mixtures of the three primary colours, along with black and white, I come up with a certain number of possible…

— Gerhard Richter

The year is always correct, also the month, only the day can be another. But that occurs to me only in the…

— Gerhard Richter

I find the Romantic period extraordinarily interesting. My landscapes have connections with Romanticism: at times I feel a real desire for, an…

— Gerhard Richter

Painting is consequently an almost blind, desperate effort, like that of a person abandoned, helpless, in totally incomprehensible surroundings.

— Gerhard Richter

Everything has a reason, including the selection of the photos, which was not arbitrary but appropriate to the period, its highs and…

— Gerhard Richter

I don't dare to think my paintings are great. I can't understand the arrogance of someone saying, 'I have created a big,…

— Gerhard Richter

I'm still very sure that painting is one of the most basic human capacities, like dancing and singing, that make sense, that…

— Gerhard Richter

Politicians are nauseating by definition... They can produce nothing, neither a loaf of bread nor a table nor a picture; and this…

— Gerhard Richter

In 1981, I think, for the Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf. Before that I designed a mirror room for Kasper König's Westkunst show, but…

— Gerhard Richter

I have no motif, only motivation. I believe that motivation is the real thing, the natural thing, and that the motif is…

— Gerhard Richter

I believe that you always have to believe. It's the only way; after all we both believe that we will do this…

— Gerhard Richter

Maybe we didn't even have a chance. The message of American Pop Art was so powerful and so optimistic. But it was…

— Gerhard Richter

A lot of different things had to come together over the years, accumulated experiences of a general and personal nature, before the…

— Gerhard Richter

Not the victims of any specific ideology of the left or of the right, but of the ideological posture as such. This…

— Gerhard Richter

I do see myself as the heir to a vast, great, rich culture of painting - of art in general - which…

— Gerhard Richter

Without form, communication stops... without form, you have everybody burbling on to themselves, whenever and however, things that no one else can…

— Gerhard Richter

We've lost these qualities, these abilities to do something by hand. Some illustrators have it still, but it's just not art. We…

— Gerhard Richter

My landscapes are not only beautiful or nostalgic, with a Romantic or classical suggestion of lost Paradises, but above all 'untruthful'...

— Gerhard Richter

The photograph is the only picture that can truly convey information, even if it is technically faulty and the object can barely…

— Gerhard Richter

I don't know what motivated the artist, which means that the paintings have an intrinsic quality. I think Goethe called it the…

— Gerhard Richter

To talk about paintings is not only difficult but perhaps pointless too. You can only express in words what words are capable…

— Gerhard Richter

When I make a representation of something, this, too, is an analogy to what exists; I make an effort to get a…

— Gerhard Richter

The photograph is the most perfect picture. It does not change; it is absolute, and therefore autonomous, unconditional, devoid of style. Both…

— Gerhard Richter

Painting pictures is simply the official, the daily work, the profession, and in the case of the watercolours I can sooner afford…

— Gerhard Richter

Cage is much more disciplined. He made chance a method and used it in constructive ways; I never did that. Everything here…

— Gerhard Richter